Just Have to Keep Going
by Razzels
Summary: A story of a girl as she tries to rebuild a life torn apart in a world now overun by walkers. AU, OC. Rating just in case.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey guys, so this is my story. Its defiantly an AU also I plan to follow rather closely with the series. It may take a while for me to get to the rest of the group but I do plan on having Maria get to them by chapter 3 or 4. Im going to try really hard to make this story as non marysue as possible, but yeah let me know what you think. J **

The news channels had been blowing up with all these reports of mad lunatics going around eating people. It was absolutely insanity. At first the police had said it was a drug problem, people getting high on bath salts and meth. It took days for people to figure out that these people weren't mad. That the cause of all this anarchy was actually a disease spreading at an alarming pace. Maria had been living in Daytona Beach Florida with some friends for the summer while she was on holiday from college. Her best friend Kiki had moved there after they graduated from high school together back in Ohio.

buzz buzz…..

Maria felt the phone in her pocket vibrating she looked on the caller id and saw it read DAD.

"Hey Dad…. Yeah I'm watching the news…. Yeah I saw the new report…no we haven't heard of any new cases around here yet. The closest we've heard about was up in South Carolina….. I'm sure if I drive I'll be able to make it home no problem. Its only a days drive back to Cincinnati….. Ok if you say so I'll go see if theres any flights leaving soon….alright I got the numbers…. Yeah ok I love you to dad….mkay bye."

Kiki looked over at Maria from across the couch. "What did he say?"

"Huh he wants me to come home now. Says my moms getting really worried about me catching whatever this is while I'm down here or my car breaking down on my way home in all this mess. He gave me his credit card number to buy a plane ticket home asap. Said we would worry about getting the car home later. Here pass me the computer."

Kiki handed the laptop over and Maria began a search for flights leaving for Dayton Ohio.

"Aw," Kiki sighed "But you were suppose to be here for a whole other week."

"I know. Tell me about it, this stupid virus or whatever is ruining everything. Just watch in a couple weeks no ones even gonna care about this stupid thing, its gonna be just like H1N1. The media is throwing all this way out of proportion, their making it sound like the end of the world… Ugh. The stupid airport website isn't working."

"Dude just call."

"I am calling. shh." Maria smiled while she dialed in the airport phone number. "Huh that's weird. I'm just getting a busy signal."

"So hang up and call back." Kiki got up and walked into the kitchen. "OH MY GOD! MARIA GET IN HERE NOW!" Maria jolted up off the couch and sprinted into the kitchen.

"WHAT? WHAT IS IT?" Kiki didn't answer, just pointed out the window into her backyard. There was a tall lanky black man staggering around in the yard like he was on a bender.

"Do you think its one of those people? Like the ones on the tv and stuff?" Kiki asked.

Maria moved closer to the window and tried to get a better look at the trespasser.

The man outside must have seen the movement because he suddenly got very excited and started running across the yard to the window, well hobbling was more like it. Once he got closer to the house he didn't stop, he just slammed face first into the window and started gnawing and pawing at the glass.

The two girls would have laughed at the drunken fool under normal circumstances, but now that they had a good view of the man up close they could barely move from shock. The man was shirtless and had large sections of his torso missing. There were several places where the ribs and shoulder bones were visible. There was no way to explain how this man was still up and moving around with injuries like that.

As the girls stood there in shock the man began to get more aggressive and began pounding on the glass, blood was smearing everywhere.

"What should we do Maria. Call the cops?"

"I guess what else can we do. Lets get away from the kitchen though, maybe he'll just go away if he doesn't see us." The two went back to the couch but kept their eyes on the man in the window. Kiki was on the phone with the police office and Maria was still trying to get a hold of the airport.

"You get anything?" Maria asked.

"Yeah the operator said they would send someone as soon as they can but that we should for absolutely no reason engage him in any way. Did you get any where with the airport?"

"No still nothing. This whole day is just getting weird. Maybe we should leave and go somewhere until the cops show up. Its making me anxious sitting here watching that guy."

"Yeah defiantly, lets go." Kiki agreed. Maria grabbed the keys to her impala and was about to head outside when Kiki grabbed her arm away from the front door.

"Wait look outside." Maria looked through the shades and saw that Kiki was right. There had to be at least three dozen people staggering around the small cul-de-sac.

"Shit. Shit. Shit. What are we gonna do now Kiki. Fuck. Its just like the stories on the news." Maria quickly pulled the shades back down hoping none of the 'people' outside had noticed them.

"Well quick what did they say in all those warnings."

"I don't remember. I wasn't paying attention, all that stuff had been happening way up north. How did it get down here?" There was a loud bang from outside before Kiki could respond. The girls both jumped at the sound.

"Fuck what was that?" Maria hissed at Kiki. Both girls were on the edge of panic now. Kiki gingerly peered out the window again.

"Shit. Theres a car that just hit that pole at the end of the street. It…. It looks like all the people are going towards the accident now…"

"Do you think we should go help the people in the car?"

"Oh god Maria their… their…"

"Their what damn it?" Maria pulled back part of the blinds again and looked out also. Outside she saw that the dozens of people had become a mob surrounding the wrecked car. She watched as they dragged the two passengers out of the car and started to rip them apart. Maria could hear them screaming.

"Aww fuck Maria what are we gonna do! What are we gonna do? Shit what happened to the guy in the backyard, hes gone."

"Maybe he went to join the others." Maria said morbidly not being able to look away from the carnage outside. Tears of fear and panic started to fill her eyes.

"Maria we have to do something. We cant stay here, not after that. Remember what the reporters said. To move away from affected areas. To move to emergency center or something."

"Yeah your right. We got to get out of here. Come on lets grab some stuff and leave quick. We might not be able to come back for a while." The two quickly gathered up some clothing and necessities. Maria had it easy because mostly all of her stuff was already packed up due to her being on vacation down here.

"Maria how are we gonna get to the car with them out there? They said on the tv that you can get infected just by being close to them." Maria's car was parked out on the street and thanks to the accident victims, there were no longer any infected people in between them and the car.

"I don't think we should have a problem. Looks like their…. distracted." she felt like she was going to be sick as soon as the words left her mouth. The two were able to get out to the car without much problem and pull away. Although they did have several followers once the mob discovered another moving object to chase.

"Ok now where do we go from here?" Maria asked driving extremely cautiously out of the now eerily empty housing development.

"I guess the police station. At least there they can tell us where to head to. Maybe some kind of shelter has been set up."

"Alright police station it is."

While driving through town the girls began to fully realize the extent of what was happening. The streets looked like a bomb had gone off. Store windows were busted open and abandoned cars littered the streets. They only saw a few infected at first but nothing to cause alarm, they just drove past them as quickly as possible.

"I cant believe all of this. We were over here yesterday and everything was fine. I don't understand how this could happen." Kiki reflected from the passenger seat.

"I know. This is all so unreal. It'll be alright though. We just have to get to the police station and they'll tell us what to do." Maria responded. She was sure that everything was going to be ok. Daytona wasn't exactly the best town. They had a huge drug and homeless problem, so she told herself that it made sense that a place like this would blow up so fast.

The girls had a relatively uneventful drive to the station. There were a few infected that chased them down the road as they past, but they were able to quickly lose them since they were in a car. Everything was going fine until they turned that last corner onto second street.

"Shit. How are we gonna get through this." Maria looked out on to the road ahead of them and there must have been close to 100 people scattered across the street.

"Just keep driving Maria. See if you can get closer to the station. Its only a couple blocks down, then we can just get out and run for it." Maria tried her best to maneuver around the obstacles of sick people. However it didn't take long for the infected to notice the car moving among them. It started out slow, they only patted and pawed at the windows and hood of the car at first but then more and more of them began to join in. Eventually they were completely surrounded by a thick layer of bloodied, moaning bodies smashed up against all sides of their car.

"Maria why are you slowing down? keep going!" Kiki yelled.

"I cant keep going Kiki! I'm gonna run one of them over!"

The infected mass outside began to get more and more restless. They began banging harder and harder on the windows and sides of the car. A few began to climb up the hood to start scratching the windshield with their brittle, broken, bloodied finger nails. Some of the people even began to start gnawing and biting at the windows next to the girls faces. Maria couldn't look away from them. Their skin pasty and dirty, eyes milky, how were they able to see with eyes like that she thought. The mouths were the worst part. The tongues and teeth pressed up against the windows. Smearing blood and saliva all over. The lips on most of them looked as if they had been torn completely off the face. All of it was black. What kind of a disease causes the mouth to turn black like that? It looks as if…...they look like corpses.

CCCCRRAAASSHH!

"AAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHH!" Marias head snapped around and she thought her heart was about to burst out of her chest. Someone had broken through the back passenger window of her car and now blackened corpse like arms were reaching out and yanking Kiki towards them by her hair. They were wrenching her out of her seat and she was clawing at their hands trying to pry them off of her.

"DRIVE! MARIA! DRIVE!" Maria didn't think anymore. Her foot slammed down on the pedal and the car sped up. Kiki was able to get the hands off herself, but their were still six or seven of these things trying to wedge their way into the back of her car all at once. The car wasn't able to go very fast since it began to bump up and down dramatically as they ran over person after person in a desperate attempt to get away.

"Oh GOD! OH GOD! WERE KILLING THEM!" Maria screamed. Tears were falling down her cheeks now. How could all of this happen? Why us? Why was this happening to us?

"WE HAVE NO CHOICE MARIA! THEY WERE ATTACKING ME JUST KEEP GOING! AGGGHHH!" A second window shattered now. This time it was the front passenger. An uncountable number of arms burst through the window now. They grabbed at Kiki every where they could. One of them grabbed at her hair again and pulled her head out the window while two others sunk their teeth into her neck and shoulders. Maria saw them rip their teeth out, tearing a chunk of meat the size of a softball out of her. Blood spurted out and poured down her neck and chest staining her white tank top.

"NOOO KIKI! NOOO! GETT OFF HER! GET OFF!" Maria let go of the controls of the car and grabbed at Kiki's legs trying desperately to pull her away from the freaks eating her alive.

"HOLD ON KIKI! ITS GONNA BE OK! ITS GONNA BE OK! GET THE FUCK OFF HER!" Kiki kept screaming as the freaks dragged her out of the car and out of Marias reach. "NOOO! KIKI!"

Maria couldn't help thinking of the people from the car crash they had seen earlier. She reached over and grabbed blindly at the floor of her back seat trying to find the crow bar she had left back there.

Once she had a hold of it she jumped out the busted open window of the car that just moments before her best friend had been dragged out of bloody and screaming. Finally out of the car maria was horrified by what she saw.

Kiki was on the asphalt screaming and crying with a dozen of these things crouched down surrounding her. They were biting and scratching at her tearing skin and blood and… guts out of her.

"GET OFF! GET OFF!" Maria yelled while she started swinging the crow bar at the freaks who were murdering her friend. She was able to get a few of them off of her by beating them in the face with the bar. She kept at this until she was able to get right next to Kiki.

"ITS GONNA BE ALRIGHT JUST HOLD ON!" Maria began kicking the others on the ground around her in the head while she swung madly at anyone who came near her and her friend.

"ITS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT! IM GOING TO GET YOU OUT OF HERE! AAAGGGHH!" Maria began screaming herself as one of the freaks came up behind her and grabbed onto her shoulders. She flailed her crow bar wielding arm around quickly and was able to knock the man who grabbed her off his feet, but this was a short lived victory as three more came at her right behind the first one. Maria was terrified at this point, she could still hear Kiki screaming but it was getting fainter. She looked back and she saw that more of those things were tearing at her. Maria was only able to get a few swings in on those ones before the other three got to her.

All three reached out for her at once. Two of them, one looked like a women with long stringy brown hair grabbed her arm and the other a man with a ripped up blue jacket grabbed her other arm. The third an older looking man with a sunken in face wearing a brown suit clutched her shoulders and opened his month to take a bit out of her. Maria screamed and tried to wrench herself away but only ended up causing all four of them to fall to the ground. Maria twisted and screamed and was able to pull her arms free and tuck her knees in so she was able to kick the man on top of her away for a second.

Maria rolled over onto her stomach and frantically reached for the crow bar she had dropped in the fall but before she could reach it a loud bang echoed in her ears. That first bang was followed by several others and then she heard men yelling. She saw a person in front of her fall to the ground with its head blown off, then another to her left. Before Maria could figure out what was happening an arm reached out and grabbed her around the waist pulling her up off her feet. Maria began kicking and screaming.

"NOOOO! GETT OFF ME! GET OFF!"

"IM NOT ONE OF THEM GIRL! IM HERE TO HELP YOU!" Maria tried to twist to see the man carrying her. "PLEASE! HELP MY FRIEND PLEASE! WE HAVE TO HELP HER!" The man pulled her up over his shoulder and she continued to hear gunshots.

"WE CANT! ITS TOO LATE FOR HER!" The man started to walk backwards away from Marias now wrecked impala and she could see three other men carrying shot guns behind him.

"NOOO! WE CANT LEAVE HER! SHE NEEDS HELP! I CANT LEAVE HER! NOOO!" She was sobbing now while she screamed. Maria began beating on the mans back. "WE CANT LEAVE HER! NO! PLEASE!" The man carrying her yelled something back to the other men but she could not hear it.

The man turned around and headed back to the other men, still carrying her. Maria looked back to the place that she had left Kiki laying on the street, but all she could see were the backs of the dozens of… of… she didn't even know what, eating her friend alive. It was then that Maria realized, she was the only one screaming.


	2. Chapter 2

**HEY SORRY THIS HAS BEEN AWHILE AND SORRY ITS SO SHORT. I JUST WANTED TO GET THIS OUT THERE. HOPEFULLY I CAN GET THE REST OF THIS CHAPTER OUT THERE SOON AND GET THIS STORY REALLY GOING. ONCE AGAIN MESSAGE ME WITH AND COMMENTS. I REALLY AM TRYING TO MAKE THIS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IN THIS STORY VERY REALISTIC SO IF ANYTHING SEEMS FAKE OR EXAGGERATED PLEASE LET ME KNOW. THANK YOU SO MUCH! HOPE YOU ENJOY!**

* * *

"Marcus hurry up get in here!" Maria heard a man yell from behind her. She was terrified as she watched a herd of sick cannibals chase them as she was carried through a open garage door by an unknown man that she could only assume was named Marcus. Once through the door way she could see another man, one of the men she had seen in the street with a shot gun, close the over head garage door and pad lock it to the floor.

Suddenly she felt her self get flipped over the mans shoulders that was carrying her and placed back onto her feet. Her head felt heavy after upside down like that. She almost fell to the ground but caught herself. She looked up still crying to see who her savior had been. He was a large, heavily muscled man with a shaved head and dark skin.

"Hi, Im Marcus." The man said. "Are you alright?"

"She Bite?" A different man with dark brown hair asked.

"I don't know, Give me a sec." Marcus yelled back to the man. "Are you bite, or scratched, injured in any way." he asked while he went ahead looking her over examining her arms and legs.

"NO! IM NOT ALRIGHT!" Maria screamed at him. "YOU LEFT KIKI OUT THERE WE HAVE TO GO BACK." Maria started moving to try to open the door again. "SHE NEEDS ME!"

"ITS NO USE. YOU CANT GO OUT THERE." A blond man this time stood in her way baring her path to the doors. She could hear the infected outside still banging and moaning against the metal doors. "SHES ALREADY GONE. ITS TOO LATE. SHES ALREADY GONE. IM SORRY."

"HEY IS SHE BIT! WE CANT HAVE ONE OF THOSE THINGS IN HERE!" The brown haired man said again.

"MAN SHUT UP CARLOS! SHES NOT FUCKING BIT." Marcus yelled back to the man. Maria couldn't handle this, its all to much. He said Kiki was gone? How could that be? How can she just be gone? But she knew it to be true. She had seen what those things out there had done to her. She had seen the way they torn her insides out of her.

"NOOO. ITS NOT FAIR. Its not Fair." she collapsed on the ground.

"Im so sorry for you lose. Really all of us are." the blond man said kneeling down trying to console her. Her tried to put a hand on her shoulder, but maria just slapped it away.

"Please Just Leave Me Alone. Please." Maria sobbed pulling her knees up to be chest and crying into her them.

The men left her alone, they went away to a different room. She didn't know how long that she sat there crying she couldn't handle it. Just an hour ago everything was fine. Maria wished she had never woken up that day. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and typed DAD into the contacts. She put the phone to her ear. It only rang once before, 'You Have Reached The Voice Mail Box Of Dennis Knox. Please Leave A Message After The Beep._ BEEEEEP._'

"Hey Dad." Maria sobbed. "Something bad happened. Whatever all this stuff was on the news…. It got here. The streets are full of these infected people. They… they.." Marias voice cracked. "They killed Kiki dad. Shes dead. They just torn her right out of my car. I tried to save her I really did. Please Dad call me back. Please. I don't know what to do. I love you. I love you and Mom and everyone. Please jus" _'Beep'_ Maria looked down at her phone and saw that it disconnected. This just caused her to burst into tears again. Maria curled up on the ground and cried into the floor.

She woke up on the floor. She didn't realize she had fallen asleep while crying. The first thing that came to her mind when she woke was what had happened. She checked her phone to see if her dad had called her back. Nothing. Tears stung behind her eyes and her breath caught in her chest. She took in a few deep breaths and tried to push the pain away. Maria looked around and figured she was in some kind of auto repair shop garage. She looked over at the big metal doors and she didn't hear people outside banging anymore, but she could still hear them moaning. Maria heard the men in another room, she got up and walked over.

"Hey your awake. How are you feeling?" The man Marcus asked.

"I'm ok, I guess. I should thank you. You all saved my life. Everything happened so fast. I just….I."

" Hey, Don't worry about it." The blond man. "Were all in over our heads with this. Were just happy that we were able to get you out of there."

"Hey not all of us are so happy" Carlos stated spitefully.

"What the hell is your problem man. She could have died!" the blond responded.

"We all could have died. You risked all of us with out even consulting us Marcus."

"I did what I thought was best. No one asked you to follow me out there." Marcus stated coolly.

"Hey guys. Every one cool it. Its done with. Lets just move on and figure out what to do next." This was the forth man that maria had seen out on the streets when she was rescued.

"Man forget this shit. I'm out of here." Carlos pouted and got up and walked out of the room.


End file.
